A Mind of Winter

I took a walk up to Bash Bish Falls last weekend.  The snow was still falling but the trail (which is sheltered and well-trod) was encrusted with about a foot of bare ice.  It was quite an adventure.  There were ice-donuts at the side of the path — created by tree-drippings or ski-poles?  I’ll leave that to you:

Ice Donuts

Bash Bish, Iced Over

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

— Wallace Stevens

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